Monday, October 24, 2005

Microsoft Office substitutes

[12/10/14 frwr-news] Yeah, I guess it's free because it's now called Softmaker FreeOffice.

And I guess I never wrote it here, but OpenOffice has branched out to become LibreOffice.  What's the difference?

[3/29/12] Apparently Softmaker Office is now free?
SoftMaker Office is a complete and full-featured office that comes with a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a presentation-graphics program. This is a fully-functional, non-crippled, not time-limited version...totally free of charge, without any obligations.

Works on Windows 7, Vista, Windows XP, and Windows 2000.

The complete office suite for Windows and Linux as a free download.
Free registration: http://www.softmakeroffice.com/register_en.htm

[9/29/08] Softmaker Office looks pretty good (just from the pictures). The 2008 version is pay, but the 2006 is still free [non-free version mentioned in frwr-news]

[8/21/08] Suggested web-based applications are Google Docs, Thinkfree Online, Zoho Office

[4/6/08] Here's one that I haven't tested called tiny USB office. It's under 2.5 MB, so it should fit easily on your USB drive. [via frwr-news]

[10/8/07] I took a look at Polar Office [via frwr-news]. It looks like it's old software which is now free because not that many people were buying it. Old is fine with me, but I couldn't import my Excel 97 spreadsheet, so I won't be using it.

[9/20/07] IBM is now offering Symphony for free

[7/28/06] Google Spreadsheets in beta looks like it has good potential, but it doesn't look like it'll have full Excel functionality any time soon.

[7/10/06] Multimedia Office from Plata Software sounds like something new. But it's pretty much just the packaging of Open Office with some other freeware multimedia programs. The Open Office version used is 2.0 and it looks improved from the last time I checked (though maybe a little slow). [from frwr-news, 6/30/06]

[12/22/05] SSuite Personal Office looked promising. But when I tried to open an Excel document, nothing appeared. And when I tried to open a .doc file, that option doesn't appear. [link from frwr-news]

[1/11/09] From another post from frwr_news, I tried the Advanced Edition 2.2. I tried to open my Excel files created in Office 97 and I got an "unable to open file" message. Maybe it works fine for newer Excel files (?), but I believe OpenOffice and Google Documents opens these files without error. And in fact to double-check, I just uploaded the file the errored in ssuite to google documents and it uploaded OK.

[10/24/05] The most popular one seems to be OpenOffice.

But I liked 602PC Suite better in the short time I tried it.

I wasn't overly impressed with EasyOffice though it got a good review at download.com.

Writely looks like an interesting online word processor.

gOFFICE looks like an interesting online office suite.

-- inspired from the article Microsoft Hits 30 <!- starbulletin 10/10/05 -->

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

online file storage

[1/15/14] Box.com offering 50 GB for IOS

[6/3/11] AVG Livekive gives you 5 GB.

[5/15/11] Noticed Amazon Cloud Drive gives you 5 GB. But Skydrive is up to 25 GB.

[6/22/10] Backing up your hard drive has never been easier or less expensive. You can either buy an external hard drive (we like the LaCie Rugged 500 Gigabyte model that retails for $139 on NewEgg.com), or rent virtual backup space via companies like Dropbox.com, Mozy and iDrive. I personally use Dropbox. Any file I create I save to a Dropbox folder on my computer. While I work away, the document is being saved to a virtual server. The best part? I can access all the files on my computer from any machine, anywhere.

[7/11/10] Trying out dropbox. Quite easy to use. Acts just like another folder on your computer. Trying out idrive too. Seems more like mozy as it does scheduled backups. Both offer 2GB free.

[7/9/09] Digital Slob features dropbox which offers 2GB free which allows you to put virtual folders on the internet to share with other computers

[6/12/09] l4rge is now working again. And so is the website access which never worked before. We'll see when the ads start popping up.

[6/10/09] With diino going away (the free version anyway), I tried l4rge. It has massive file storage [15 GB]. FTP worked, but for some reason the web access don't work. No problem. I wanted to use it for storage anyway.

But now, when I tried today, I can't log on. Maybe they're gone now. So I tried another search and wound up with teradepot which gives you like 10GB. But I can't figure out how to do multiple uploads and apparently the files are erased after a period of time.

[3/3/09] Here's one I found while searching for free online file storage. Adrive gives you 50GB! However the free version has some ads. And the file dates aren't preserved (like diino). Seems to upload pretty fast.

[2/1/09] A site called drop.io allows you to upload and share on the Net anything up to 100 MB in size for free, and provides password protection for access to that data. Also, assuming what you want to store or share is faxable, it allows you to send and receive up to 20 pages at a time FOR FREE without a fax machine. Finally, a toll-free bridge from your computer's desktop to the nation's engine of commerce (which remains technologically stuck in 1989).

[6/12/08] I'm finally trying out mozy after they sent me an email that they have a new version out. It's kind of different and kind of neat. It runs in the background and backs up your system automatically every day. You can choose what you want to backup. One things that's nice is that it's smart enough to know how to back up your email from Outlook Express. It can only backup 2GB on the free account though. It's $4.95 per month for unlimited space.

[5/20/08] While doing a search on the web, I came across 4shared.com which gives you 5 GB. Seems to upload pretty fast.

[4/9/08] Windows Live Skydrive gives you 5GB <!- found while looking for gdrive -->

[2/11/08] Another one is Mediamax.

[12/10/07] I'm trying out diino [via frwr-news] which gives 2 GB free and after getting used to it, I find that I like it the best so far. It works with a client in which you can drag and drop files. File transfer speed isn't the fastest though.

[6/26/07] I notice esnips is now offering 5 GB.

[3/28/07] xdrive has been bought out by AOL and offers 5 GB. Unfortunately, they didn't give it to me when I signed up. Mozy offers 2 GB but requires software and works only on XP and up.

[11/12/06] Box.net is mentioned over in the Hardware Junkies MSN group. They give you 1 GB and seems more responsive than the sites I tried before.

Still waiting for gdrive (google drive). Haven't tried gmail drive yet.

[12/25/05] I'm trying esnips (tip from brknews of all places) which give you 1GB of storage. It seems a little clunky and doesn't allow folder inside folders. One large file (mia.htm) errored out. Another one seemed to upload OK.

[10/22/05] Here's another one, streamload.com (from Bill Husted's column in the 10/9/05 starbulletin.)

[10/19/05] I tried a couple of places. Flipdrive seems OK, though I had trouble uploading using IE. It worked fine with FireFox. A mainstream solution is Yahoo! Briefcase. I just tried it and had no problems. Flipdrive gives you 25 MB. Yahoo! Briefcase gives you 30 MB.

[10/18/05] How about free online file storage? You know places you can back up your files to some hard drive somewhere on the internet? Freewebspace.net mentions six of these places.

If you just want to save photos, I've been using imageshack. Another one I've tried is imageshare.biz (though this one leaves a little "hosted by" message at the bottom). There are a bunch of others that I haven't tried yet.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Windows Vista

If you were confused by the different editions of Windows XP (Home, Pro, Tablet, Media Center), get ready to be even more overwhelmed by the choices you'll have with Windows Vista. At last count, Microsoft was planning no less than nine separate editions.

- from WinXPNews #198

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Blingo

What is Blingo? It's like google but with prizes. Actually it uses the google engine, so you'll get the same results. But with the added possibility of winning a prize.

In addition, if you add me as a blingo friend, if I win then you win. (For some reason, I had trouble accessing this option from Internet Explorer, but it seemed to work fine using FireFox.)

- from On Computers by Joy and Bob Schwabach

* * *

Here's the invitation, so we can all start winning prizes!

Join Blingo Friends with Me

Blingo is a new search engine that gives away prizes every day
like Sony PlayStation Portables, Apple iPods, Visa gift cards,
a year of free movies from Netflix, and more.

By joining Blingo Friends you can invite your friends to use
Blingo, and when one of them wins a prize you win the same prize.
That means if one of your friends wins an iPod, you win one too.

Just click this link to join Blingo Friends (it only takes 15
seconds), or copy it and paste it into your browser:

http://www.blingo.com/friends?ref=PuEjR1cZskkJCRoZnTZp0acQtwA

Thanks,
Mike and Blingo

--
Blingo
http://www.blingo.com

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Borland Museum

Borland has made available free of charge its classic programming languages Turbo Pascal and Turbo C.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Irving's Info Page

Irving Stein has a lot of computer tips for you.

- Cool Tricks and Trinkets #371

glad you called

Desperate? Nobody calling you?

Diane will call anybody in the U.S. or Canada

-- from Tricks and Trinkets #371

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Calculator.com

Looking to calculate something? Chances are you'll find an appropriate calculator at calculator.com

- from frwr-news, 2/15/05

Monday, October 03, 2005

Xena and Gabrielle

Astronomers on Mauna Kea who found a possible 10th planet on the edge of our solar system have made another discovery -- it has a moon.

Using the W.M. Keck Observatory, a team of astronomers spotted a faint object trailing next to it on Sept. 10.

The new planet has been temporarily nicknamed Xena after a "warrior princess" character on a television show, so the moon is being called Gabrielle, after a sidekick of the television warrior, the Keck Observatory said.